


Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

by camichats



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Getting Together, Just Married, Las Vegas Wedding, One Shot, Relationship Negotiation, Sex Worker Natasha Romanoff, Sugar Daddy Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 01:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Tony wakes up in Vegas with a hangover and a wedding ring on his finger. He was going to embrace the cliche and make the most of this.





	Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was gonna be the first chapter of like 10, but I ran out of steam and this was just gathering dust in my WIP folder.

Tony woke up with a pounding head and a parched throat. His mouth felt disgusting and his tongue too thick for the space it was filling. A hangover then. Not surprising or out of the ordinary at all, unfortunately.

He shifted, and felt the weight of another body in bed with him. He peeked one eye open, then closed it quickly at the beam of light coming through the window, his head giving a painful throb. More carefully this time, he opened his eye, a slit that barely made way through his eyelashes, and turned to see them. A woman this time, which was probably for the best since he couldn't remember a thing about last night, and when he got that way with men he tended to let them fuck him without any prep and then he spent the next two weeks regretting it. Waking up with someone he didn't remember seeing and bringing them back to his hotel was also completely ordinary. He was getting a little older though, and he didn't want to be a middle aged man still acting like this, but that was a problem for the future.

Gingerly, Tony sat up, careful not to wake her up or jostle himself too much. He rubbed at his face and felt a strange sensation coming from one of his fingers. Was that a ring? He pulled his hands back and squinted at them dumbly. Yes, that was a ring. Foreign and golden, resting on his ring finger on his left hand. Why was he wearing a ring? He never wore any because they were a hazard in the workshop, and he had a scar on the middle finger of his right hand as proof. He went to go pull if off before it clicked in his muddled mind. He… was wearing… a wedding ring.

Okay. Alright. He was going to go to the bathroom, take a piss and wash out his mouth so it didn't feel like he'd swallowed something that promptly died, and _ then _ he was going to think about this. The woman on the bed stirred when he got up, and he noticed that she had red hair. _ Nice _ , he thought to himself as he stumbled across the room. Not strawberry blonde like Pepper, thankfully. If someone had seen them together-- and he would have to assume that they had-- this would at least stop _ most _ speculation that he was trying to replace Pepper in his sex life or some shit.

He winced at the cool tile floor, but it woke him up enough that he was able to get through the post-bender morning ritual and back into the room, feeling markedly more alive. When he walked back into the room, the woman he'd spent the night with was sitting up and rubbing at her eyes, holding the sheet up to cover her chest. She wasn't putting any effort into appearing attractive or coy, but Tony could tell she was fucking gorgeous. The kind of ridiculously attractive that he wished he could remember spending time with.

With a mental sigh, he went to the dresser to pull on some fresh boxer-briefs. He was a few feet away from her, and she was watching him cautiously, clearly not knowing if she should start getting dressed. "I don't suppose you remember what happened last night?" Tony asked, holding up his left hand and wiggling his fingers.

Her face scrunched up in a frown before her eyes flew open in realization, and she checked her own hand for a matching ring, which she found. "_Fuck_," she whispered vehemently.

"I'll take that as a no. Great, now neither of us knows if this is real," he said, but he didn't blame her for not knowing. How could he? He had no clue either, and as the famous one here, it probably should have been his responsibility to keep track of it. Not that he'd ever bothered in the past, but he also hadn't had a marriage scare before. Tony looked around for his pants from last night, then rooted around in his pockets for his phone. He sat on the corner of the bed, a respectable distance from her, just in case she wanted it. It was lit up with notifications, including dozens of missed calls and unread messages from Pepper and Rhodey. He winced as his phone started vibrating again, the screen lit up with Pepper's smiling face. "Hey Pep, light of my life, love of my company."

"Don't," she said, voice beyond stern and into the 'if you give me half a reason I will rip your balls off for making me deal with this' area. "It's bad enough that you blew off James for that presentation when you told me that you would be there, but there are pictures _ everywhere _ of you and some stripper in a chapel getting married. Christ Tony, with this level of publicity you aren't going to be able to just get this annulled. And what if she's a gold digger? Do you have any idea how long she could drag this out? With us trying to get clean energy started, _ why _ would you do this?"

Tony's stomach sank, Pepper's disappointment washing over him and crashing like a wave. He pulled the speaker away from his mouth and twisted to face the woman-- his wife, apparently. "What's your name?"

"Natasha," she said, thankfully not appearing offended that he didn't remember.

He nodded in thanks and turned back. "Look Pep, just- sit on it for a little bit, don't release any statements and don't do press for any of our products. I'll talk to Natasha and figure out what we're going to do."

Pepper let out a ragged breath. "Thank you Tony. If she needs a buy-out, offer it, and I'll negotiate when you get home, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks Pep."

"I'm still mad at you."

Tony nodded to himself and scrubbed at his face with his free hand. "Yeah. Talk to you soon."

"You better," she said, then hung up. He sighed, knowing that this wasn't a time where she pretended to be mad and he pretended to blow her off for fun. She was actually, _ genuinely _ upset with him, and he didn't know how to fix that. He didn't even know if that was something he feasibly could fix. 

"So," he said, bringing the phone down from his ear and holding it loosely between his fingers as he tapped it on his knee. "Apparently our marriage is legit. Or legitimate enough that everyone thinks it's real, and that's basically the same thing right now. We probably have the certificate around here somewhere, but we're going to have to assume this is real even if we can't find it." He turned around to face Natasha. "Any thoughts?"

She hadn't moved from her sitting position, still holding the sheets up to cover herself. "I think that will make me very popular at work tonight."

Tony snorted. "Right. Exotic dancer, right?"

"You can just say stripper, you know," she said, giving him an amused look.

"Didn't want to be rude to my wife," he teased. "I'm Tony, by the way."

"Yeah, I knew that, funnily enough. Natasha, in case you forgot again."

Ah. Maybe he wasn't quite as forgiven as he'd originally thought/hoped. "Sorry. If it helps, I don't remember even being in a strip club. I'm assuming that's how we met?"

Natasha nodded, yawning widely. "Yeah. You came in, tipped _ very _ nicely, I gave you a few lap dances, and you offered to show me a good time when I got off work." She shrugged. "It gets a little fuzzy after that, but from what I remember, you delivered."

"Good to know." Tony ran a hand through his hair and scrunched his face at the feeling; gel felt like shit the next day. "Do you want a divorce?"

"I could go for one," she said neutrally. "But I also think people won't leave me alone for a month after this, and not in a good way. Paparazzi don't pay, I'd bet they don't tip either."

"That's a solid bet." An idea hit Tony, and he eyed Natasha, wondering if she'd go for it. "How do you feel about being a sugar baby?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow-- also red to match her hair, which meant that it wasn't dyed, and he found that _ very _ intriguing. "Is that an offer?"

She could always go to the papers saying that he offered, but he didn't think that would make the situation worse, really. Just the same level of bad that it was right now. Nothing to lose then, and that was always a fun spot to be in. Might as well take the plunge. "Sure is. Standard bullshit I'd imagine, dressing up and going to events with me, dealing with being in the public eye. No fooling around with other people unfortunately, but it's the best way to not get another scandal. In return, I cover all your costs, buy you-- I dunno, pearls and furs or whatever-- and some cash when we split. Interested?"

"Extremely. No sex?"

"Wasn't planning on it. It's not a deal breaker."

"How about we add it in and in exchange you pay for my college classes?"

"You're in college?"

"I will be if you pay for it."

"Done."

Natasha smiled, self-satisfied and content with what she got out of the deal. "You got any condoms around here?" she purred.

Tony blinked. "Somewhere."

She hummed, dropping the sheet and smirking when his eyes immediately went down to her body and his cock gave a twitch, starting to fill. "You might want to find one."

"Uh, okay." He stood and walked around the bed to the nightstand. They _ should _ be in here, but sometimes when he was drunk he misplaced things so that he couldn't find them later. Drunk-Tony was not very nice to Sober-Tony, but he found the box of condoms there and pulled one out. "You don't waste any time, do you?"

Natasha sat up on her knees and started shoving the sheets and blankets to the side until there was a clear spot on the bed surrounding her, the bedding bunched up on the other half. "Best way to seal a deal, wouldn't you say?"

"I wouldn't want to seal a deal this way with most people I have to make deals with," he said.

"Most people you're dealing with are seventy year old conservative fucks, I wouldn't want to touch them either," she said, nose wrinkling at the thought even as she held out an arm for Tony to join her. "Although I suppose if you're thinking about them, I'm not doing a very good job. Come here."

That jumped him into action, and he walked over to her, hovering awkwardly at the edge of the bed, not sure if he should take off his underwear before getting on the bed. He wasn't used to this sort of situation at all. Most of his hook up's were at night or in the dark of a club, and there wasn't a time he could remember where it was anything more than a hormone filled crush of two (or three) bodies.

Natasha handled it for him though, pulling the waistband down and urging him to crawl on top of her. 

* * *

Later, Tony sent Pepper a text that said _ We worked it out. Will call in a bit if you want. _ Pepper would almost certainly want him to call, but it was always a good idea to be extra nice to her after something bad happened.

He took a shower before switching places with Natasha so she could scrub clean. He had a hand towel and was drying his hair some more when he checked his phone. Sure enough, Pepper had texted back to tell him that he should call. He pulled on some clothes-- nothing fancy, just a t-shirt and jeans since he didn't have any plans today-- and hit call on her contact. As it rang, he searched for something to give Natasha when she got out. All she had were the clothes she'd gone out in, which consisted of a body-hugging, strapless, bright red dress and a pair of seamless panties that were currently crusty with come. Yeah he wasn't going to ask her to put those back on.

The dialing tone cut out, and Pepper didn't bother saying hello. "She's going to take a settlement then?"

"No."

"What? Tony, you told me you worked it out." She paused, then sighed. "Tony, if she says she doesn't want anything, this is just going to come back and bite us on the ass in a year or two. I know she's gorgeous, but I thought you knew better than to believe what a pretty face-- or a nice set of breasts-- tells you."

"She didn't tell me that she wants nothing," he said, searching one of the drawers for sweats. He knew he had them here _ somewhere _. If they weren't in the dresser or his suitcase, he was going to assume that Drunk Tony decided to not let anyone be comfortable and hid them somewhere ridiculous like behind the curtain or under the armchair. He started searching in those places. 

"Then what does she want?"

"You know Pep, you're always telling me that I should settle down."

"…you didn't," Pepper said, voice deadly serious.

"Plenty of people have sugar babies, Pepper-pot. People who are older than me, I might add." And-- not to stroke his ego-- a lot uglier. Not to mention far less rich. He was forty, and the absolute youngest she could be was eighteen. He hoped like hell that was older than that, but the max age difference was twenty, where most people in this situation had forty years separating them. 

"Tony we haven't vetted her! You have no idea what she's like, this could get out of hand so easily, did you think about any of this? Or did you just assume that I'd take care of it like I have to take care of everything else for you?"

"Pepper. I thought about it. Besides, what's the worst case scenario here?"

"A smear campaign, stock dropping, and a net loss higher than what we could've gotten at the start," she said immediately.

"Okay, a smear campaign was going to happen anyways, I think people will be happy to learn that I'm giving this a shot instead of bailing out of it immediately, and she's not a vampire. I'm offering her a life of luxury and no college loans."

"College loans?" Pepper repeated, confusion tinting her voice momentarily. "She could ask you for the moon, and she decided to go to college?"

"Yep. Don't worry Pep, contrary to popular belief, I do know how to practice restraint. Or at least practice restraint on others, I told her she's not allowed to buy anything big. No islands, no jets, no boats, no cars, that kind of stuff. She's so pretty though Pep, I'm going to buy her like fifty thousand outfits. She probably doesn't appreciate that she's going to be a doll."

"You're taking this awfully well," she said suspiciously. "What happened to commitment terrified Tony?"

"Does it count as commitment if it's basically a business transaction?" 

"When the business transaction includes a marriage, yes." 

He shrugged. "It's more like a long term casual relationship Pep." 

"Tony. You are _ married_." 

"Yeah but it's not like I proposed or anything. And she's not trying to tie me down, this is a partnership." 

"I know your parent's relationship was kind of awful, but you do realize that everyone else thinks of marriage as a partnership and not the outdated idea of a ball and chain?" 

"Then fine, commitment-phobic Tony has died and he won't be missed." 

Pepper sighed. "Can you _ please _ take this seriously?" 

"I am taking it seriously. The most serious of serious situations." 

"You're coming back later today," Pepper said, ignoring his attempts to convince her of his sincerity. "I'll deal with this when you arrive. Can you do me one favor? Just one?" 

"What is it?" 

"Tell her who I am. I'm tired of the women you bring home staring at me like I'm competition." 

"Done deal, Pep. And thanks." 


End file.
